Impulse Buy
by Woolverine
Summary: In which a stealth mission by Amelie Cousland leads to some stealth shopping as well.


**Impulse Buy**

Amelie was pretending to browse the merchant's wares, laid out on the stall before her. She was actually watching the outside of Brother Genitivi's house, because she and her companions needed to determine if it was safe to approach the scholar. Loghain might have learned of Genitivi's links to Redcliffe after all, and it was hardly in the traitor's interest for the Urn of Sacred Ashes to be found and the Arl cured. Anyway, the merchant had been showing her necklace after necklace but apparently sensing her lack of interest he had pulled out another box from underneath his stall.

"If I may be so bold, the lady has a certain air..." the merchant started, stopping when Amelie suddenly switched her full attention to him.

"What kind of air?" she demanded, hoping he wouldn't say "Cousland" or "tainted" or even "hunted", because Zevran had insisted that she be in disguise. Disguise meant no Starfang and Earthheart's Portable Bulwark strapped to her back, and certainly no armour of any kind. The clothes she had scavenged were of excellent quality but Amelie doubt that they could stop even a blunt butter knife from sinking into her flesh, and generally she liked her flesh to remain as it was, in one piece.

"An air of being distracted? By love?" he stammered, and Amelie giggled. How far from the truth was that? He thought she wasn't paying full attention to his rather pedestrian wares because she was in love and that her apparently unsubtle glances past him were at the object of her desires. But, in the interests of maintaining her disguise Amelie nodded, trying to look bashful, and asked "Do you have anything special?"

"Indeed I do, right here in this box." He rattled it enticingly, waited for Amelie to offer some encouragement, and then gave up. "I have a small collection of paired items," he explained. "Matching jewellery for couples. Amulets, brooches, rings." He started to lay out the items before her.

Matching? For couples? It needn't necessarily be for pairs of lovers, need it? Such a gift could be symbolic of the growing bond of friendship between two people thrown together by darkest circumstance and loss and ... and ... and...

"Rings sound interesting," she found herself venturing. Brooches and armour don't really go together, and nothing could replace the amulet which Amelie had already returned to Alistair, nor would she want to.

"I have three pairs of rings, madam. This pair is particularly fine."

He passed the smaller ring over for Amelie to inspect. It looked lovely on her hand, fine, delicate but as it was a gold band of filigree hearts, perhaps a little too matrimonial? She shook her head and handed it back. The next pair was matrimonial as well, she thought, different colours of gold plaited into a single band. The last pair was even more unsuitable even if they didn't look like wedding rings. They were silver bands set with a dozen tiny gems. Amelie imagined that even a Maberi tongue would have trouble getting gore out from between those settings if one forgot to put on one's gloves before starting any essential slaughter. She sighed. It had been such a good idea too.

"Are these really all the paired rings you have?" she asked plaintively.

The merchant hesitated. "Well, I do have another pair but I wouldn't have thought them quite right for someone like yourself."

That being someone in disguise, Amelie thought. "May I see them anyway?"

He fetched a small black cloth bundle from another box and unwrapped it tentatively. The rings were plain bands, nothing overtly romantic about them at all, Amelie was relived to note, and gore-proof too. They looked as if they were made from solid snow, stark white with a glisten to them.

"I don't rightly know what they're made of, but they're magical," the merchant said. "My brother-in-law bought them off an Antivan who said he'd got them off some foreign sailor."

"Magical? How so?"

"They change colour, depending on the emotions of the wearer, apparently." The merchant slipped the large ring onto his finger and the colour changed instantly to dark blue but still with that interesting glistening effect. Amelie tried on the other ring and it became a sky blue. Instantly, she decided, she had to have these rings - Alistair would be enthralled by them.

Plus, it could be useful, in certain situations, where they couldn't speak openly, to have an idea of what the other was feeling. Yes! Now Amelie had thought of that, it made the rings a sensible, even an essential purchase. And if there was the additional effect of perhaps getting a better idea of how Alistair felt about about her. "How much are they?" she asked, preparing to haggle.

Once the coins had been handed over the merchant wrapped rings back up in their black cloth. Amelie was thrilled at the good price she had achieved for a pair of magical rings, but now she had a sudden thought. "What colours mean what emotions?" she demanded.

The merchant grinned widely. "No idea. The Antivan might have known but my doltish brother-in-law never asked. That's why the price was so low. I'm sure you and your friend will be able to work it out as you go along."

Amelie entertained a brief fantasy involving her fist and the merchant's substantial nose but she had to admit it was her own fault for not asking earlier. She practically snatched her package from him and took her leave.

Zevran joined her as Amelie ambled across the market. "You were supposed to be watching, not shopping, my lady," he chided.

"My disguise was under threat," Amelie claimed. "He was getting suspicious. It seemed safest to buy something."

"A pair of rings? One for you and one for ...? Zevran raised one oh so expressive eyebrow.

Amelie couldn't help it, she blushed, and then blushed even more when Zevran laughed softly.

"Ah, for our friend Alistair then? It is so charming the way you both blush to the same colour, truly a matched pair. I commented on it to Alistair recently but he was rather reticent." He grinned. "And even more reticent when I asked if you and he blush the same colour all over. I offered to check his body myself but he had a sudden need to talk to Morrigan." Zevran's eyes narrowed. "Alistair's bashfulness is so appealing, so delicious, don't you think? One could just gobble him all up."

"Ignoring you, Zev, ignoring you," Amelie growled.

"Why? I have often observed you making close observations of him, so you must have some opinion, no?"

"Oh, look! There's Wynne! She looks very different out of her mage robes, I hardly recognised her."

"And thus the Warden changes the subject. Very well, I shall follow your wishes, my lady."


End file.
